[Bored chemist]

Or are you a Health & Safety inspector...

Very supportive of you to confirm he was correct to call you rude.

[Prajna (OP)]

I've added the following the the web page about the device:

But will it work?

Well, we don't know yet. I have to finish building it so we can see. I have about one more day of 3D printing parts and still have to find suitable magnets. Also I would rather use 5mm stainless or chrome rods but may have to settle for mild steel rods if I can't find a local source for something better.

Most of the magnetic forces work in the direction we want them to but there is a point, as the metal tab is leaving the magnetic gap, where, in addition to the repulsion vector, which works in our favour, there is a magnetic drag on the tab, trying to drag it back into the gap. At this point the magnets are quite close and it's not easy to work out which force vector will win the tug-o-war but at this same time there are two adjacent pairs of magnets - one pair in attraction and increasing their force and the other pair in repulsion with their force diminishing - that are exerting their force in a helpful direction and they may help to overcome any back-attraction of the closest magnets.

I had rather hoped that someone on one of the science forums I posted to might take a look at the geometry of the device and give some pointers as to how the force vectors will balance but it turns out, in my experience anyway, that the denizens of such fora are a sarcastic, arrogant and unfriendly lot when it comes to examining such a device; probably they feel that since free energy/overunity/perpetual motion is outlawed by thermodynamics it is not worth their time nor worth the risk of tarnishing their professional reputations. So we'll just have to build and test it ourselves.

[paul cotter]

I said I was out but you have tempted me to make one final comment. How long have magnets been around? Quite a long time. How long have people tried to make perpetual motion machines? Again a long time. What is the purpose of these questions/answers? It is to try to show you how long attempts have been made, using every possible configuration, without success. I don't know how much you have researched previous attempts to make an all-permanent magnet motor but a vast amount of unofficial research has been done, again all to no avail. There was a forum that went by the name "overunity.com" (ceased but can still be accessed as read-only, I believe) that has hundreds of pages detailing such attempts. I am quite sure that someone somewhere has tried exactly what you propose and failed, given that so many diverse attempts have been made. The long and extensive history of this endeavour coupled with the fact that the laws of physics rule out such motors is the reason why you receive no help from the various science forums. There is as much chance of one levitating by pulling hard on their shoelaces as there is of a magnet only motor working, or ANY other free energy/overunity scheme working.   

[Prajna (OP)]

There was a forum that went by the name "overunity.com"

Thanks for the measured response, Paul. In case it interests you Stefan, who ran overunity.com, is working with UfoPolitics of overunitymachines.com to resurrect overunity.com, which is currently archived whilst waiting for the huge number of message attachments to be reconnected to the posts to which they relate. I was a member of the overunity.com forum and am now a member of overunitymachines.com. I know that it seems near certain that the conservation laws and Noether's theorem are valid and any kind of free energy is ruled out, however they are generalisations and we don't know for sure that there is no extrahexahedral approach that will allow what in that particular paradigm is impossible. There are still many aspects of physics that are open to deeper exploration and I am sure there are plenty of surprises yet to come.

When I was about 14 or 15 my great uncle showed me a design he had come up with that he suggested might be perpetual. He was unable to build it because that design required some kind of magnetic shielding. After he died I came across mumetal, a magnetic shielding material, but it works by being a very low inductance path, so the field is contained in the mumetal rather than passing through it. But I realised that wouldn't have had the effect Uncle Allan had hoped. However I posted the design to overunity.com and some years later I discovered a video of a German build based on the design that appeared to work. The video may have been a hoax, I've no way to discover whether there was some hidden propulsion system or video editing or some other subterfuge designed to mislead but it appeared convincing and I understood how it was supposed to work. Both that design and my own remix of a similar principle appear - from their geometry and action - to suggest that magnetic attraction and repulsion may be able to be used to run a system without input of any currently known energy except for the intrinsic characteristics of magnets. It may well be that the subject is not worth pursuing but I am not yet convinced because I have not yet found what would prevent this configuration running forever - a 'sticky' point in the cycle, for instance. There will be back-drag on the tab exiting the gap during one part of the cycle and it may be (because Nature likes to keep things symmetrical and in balance) that whatever geometry we can invent the forces will always cancel out. But that is not yet shown, rather, the response from the scientists I have engaged with is to shortcut the investigation by relying on the conservation laws. Perhaps in seeking to understand this device some other discovery may arise, perhaps still not challenging our current understanding of thermodynamics but adding to it. Certainly there is no possibility of that if we are to dismiss anything but what we think we already know.

[paul cotter]

I didn't know how much history of these things you were familiar with. Stefan Hartmann has been at this game for the best part of 30years and what has been achieved in that time- nothing. Every conceivable combination of magnets has been tried and none of them work despite numerous claims. Magnets are just like springs, what you lose and what you gain are always equal, minus losses. Noether's theorem is rock solid with no work around possible. Lots of people think they have found some trick that will bypass the laws of physics but it never works in practice. You are quite correct to say we don't know the full storey with physics and as knowledge improves there will be further unknowns(imho) and this process will continue indefinitely. The basic laws such as the conservation laws are very unlikely to be changed as they are the foundation on which this universe stands. 

[Prajna (OP)]

The basic laws such as the conservation laws are very unlikely to be changed as they are the foundation on which this universe stands. 

What happens to the universe if you're wrong?

I did spend quite a time on overunity.com fascinated with the idea of sinking a compressed cylinder of air to be triggered to reinflate at depth so as to take advantage of the work done. In that instance I did fully analyse the system and discovered that the work obtained was the same as was required to recompress the air. I do have a good feel for how Nature balances one kind of force against another. Just I haven't got that feel with regard to magnets yet. I'm sure that if some impossibility of a perpetual motion machine was demonstrated the universe would still stand and physicists would simply, after picking their jaws from the ground, brush off the current dogma, add a few caveats and bolster themselves up with it again.

[paul cotter]

You obviously do not understand how science works. When observations suggest a particular pattern of behaviour a law or rule is tentatively created and then researchers throw everything at it to try and falsify It. A law cannot be proved but the more attempts to undermine it fail, the stronger such law or rule becomes. It is never dogma and all laws are open to correction IF there is the required experimental evidence. The laws of thermodynamics have withstood all such attempts for ~150years and as such they stand on very solid ground. There is nothing to rule out a perpetual motion machine if all losses could be eliminated but a perpetual motion machine doing external work is categorically ruled out. You are correct that there would be consternation among scientists if such a machine, doing external work, was to be demonstrated. There is, however, not a scintilla of evidence that this has ever been done.

[Bored chemist]

I'm sure that if some impossibility of a perpetual motion machine was demonstrated

I don't think you meant to say that.

The impossibility of perpetual motion WAS demonstrated about a hundred years ago.

Just for the record, the impossibility of breaking the conservation of energy is one of the few laws of nature that's not just experimentally true; it was mathematically proven about a hundred years ago, by Emmy Noether (who should be more famous).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noether%27s_theorem

So the only remaining question is "how many times do we have to tell you this?".

[Prajna (OP)]

The impossibility of perpetual motion WAS demonstrated about a hundred years ago.

Tell that to electrons orbiting a nucleus or an inductor in a superconductor. What does Noether have to say about that? Sure you can't extract energy from such a system and it still be perpetual but it is perpetual until you do. Oh, and I do realise I am talking about a device intended to produce energy, which is not the same thing as the above examples but maybe you should be a little more precise if you're going to make assertions.

[Prajna (OP)]

There is nothing to rule out a perpetual motion machine if all losses could be eliminated

Hi Paul, I think you take me far too seriously sometimes (and perhaps not seriously enough at others). I was taking a jibe at physicists in that final sentence and I do know how science is supposed to work.

The other possibility of what we all think of as perpetual motion, or, moreover, overunity, is a system that manages to obtain its energy from a source that we have not yet identified, and that is a possibility that would not offend Mr Noether, is it not?

[paul cotter]

Perpetual motion in common parlance refers to machinery that is self propelled and capable of external work. The notion of orbiting electrons is simply a distraction and not relevant. If an additional source of energy can be found then Emmy Noether will not be disturbed as again the TOTAL energy input, minus losses, equals the output. The last "new" energy source to be discovered was nuclear energy, good luck finding a new source.

[alancalverd]

"Mr Noether" was a woman, as any scientist knows.

Or are you a Health & Safety inspector...

Very supportive of you to confirm he was correct to call you rude.

A summary of experience cannot be considered rude.